Here’s an explanation from Wikipedia.
RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, is a way to package stuff–any kind of digital data–together so that it can be delivered more easily. Think of it like a wire service feed: Reuters, or AP, deliver their stories via one pipe (what used to be a ticker, spewing out paper onto the office floor):
RSS can be a feed from a blog, or a government news service, or even audio (podcasts, for example, are delivered by RSS.)
The main advantages?
- You don’t need to go visit lots of websites to see whether they’ve been updated.
- You don’t need to fill your email inbox with lots of email alerts and newsletters.
- RSS feeds can also be read on your cellphone.
- You can organise feeds by topic and more easily keep on top of information.
- If you use a web-based reader you can read your feeds at any Internet-connected computer.
You can subscribe to an RSS feed in a reader which is either a piece of software, or, more commonly now, in a web-page. The best one right now is the Google Reader.
For how to set up your Google Reader, go here.
For how to subscribe to a feed in Google Reader, go here.
Most news services, blogs, forums, bulletin boards and many web pages have their own feeds.
Here’s a brief selection of Singapore-related RSS feed pages:
[...] RSS Basics [...]
[...] RSS Basics [...]